1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a light modulation device and a projector.
2. Related Art
In projectors, as a light modulation device that modulates an incident luminous flux according to image information to form an image, a light modulation device manufactured by a micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) technology, in addition to a light modulation device using liquid crystal, has been known in the related art (refer to JP-A-2005-70091, for example).
A light modulation device disclosed in JP-A-2005-70091 is composed of a digital micromirror device (DMD; trademark of Texas Instruments Incorporated, US) in which a micro mirror is disposed in each pixel and a luminous flux emitted from a light source is light-modulated by controlling the incident angle of the micro mirror for forming an image.
The light modulation device manufactured by such a MEMS technology has an advantage in that the problem of thermal degradation of liquid crystal or the like is not caused, which facilitates a longer service life.
However, when a DMD is used as a light modulation device, since the luminous flux emitted from the light source is reflected by the micro mirror, part of the incident luminous flux is absorbed by the micro mirror upon reflection.
That is, since the brightness of an image projected by a projector is reduced by an amount of the part of the luminous flux absorbed by the micro mirror, there is a problem in that it is difficult to efficiently use the luminous flux emitted from the light source.